With an estimated 50 million Americans and Canadians having been left without power (and in some cases water) in August, common sense requires us to reflect on the absurdity of deregulation of public utilities. The right of utility franchise is vested in the people. We give utilities permission to operate, and enable them to set up a profit-making business in exchange… return to article
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Reader Comments (17)Page 1 of 1 pagesGreat article. It shows exactly how these pirates/corporations work to manipulate the public into handing their power over to them and how the media, the so-called ‘free press’ serves their interests. We have no free press in this country. The truly ‘free press’ has become the ‘fringe press’. We are no longer in the game. We have been shoved out the door and locked out. We are aliens in our own country. The constitution is about to be locked out too with the Patriot Act. We faced two great crises in this country: 1776 and 1860. This is the third crisis. Bush has invaded Iraq, but he has also invaded America. And all our journalists are ‘imbedded’. Except for the fringe press such as In These Times, Free Speech TV, Pacifica, and Worldlink. Join us if you value your future and your children’s.
Posted by Roger Lafontaine on Sep 3, 2003 at 10:23 PM The fact of the matter is, the days of the
huge power monopolys is coming to an end
and they know it. They are large, dirty and
inefficiant.The technology is here for personal and/or
local power generation with solar, wind and
fule cell technology. And this scares the
hell out of them.Plus we now have the means to live in a
more efficiant and enviromentally sound
manner.The problem is the we are in a rut and do not
want to change the status quoe.On to of that, our current way on generating
electric power is old and outdated. It has not
basiclly changed in years. It is also very
vulnerable. Most of the distrabution lines
run through unpopulated and sometimes
wilderness areas that are impratical, if not
impossible to protect. Same for most of
the generating plants and substations.
Too many eggs inone basket, as it were.What is needed is to really sell alternative
energy to the people and stop investing
in an energy dinosaur.
Posted by chris on Sep 4, 2003 at 2:48 PM When the big utilities can simply pull the switch, local communities won’t be able to have real local democracy.
Posted by David Bacon on Sep 5, 2003 at 3:55 PM Please please please if you agree with what Kucinich has as his agenda, which is the agenda that benefits the PEOPLE of this country, and not the coporations, then please for the love of your children or country DONATE to his campaign.
Right now people are trying to label him as ‘unelectable’ but the only candidate who is really unelectable is the one we don’t support! So if you agree with the man, and if you have hope left in your soul, SUPPORT him, DONATE to get his message out to more people (who currently only hear how ‘unelectable’ he is), and VOTE for him!
Stop the menace! Vote for DENNIS!
Posted by Kucinich Supporter on Sep 5, 2003 at 7:36 PM fantastic article, hope this clown of a president is on his way OUTand your candidate IN!! and out with GW the menacing monopolists! in germany we handed over monopolists ( electricity, postal services, cellphone providers etc. ) to private companies - and all over the sudden rates are being cut in half and LESS !!?? and what does THAT tell us?...........
Posted by Ruth Eickhoff on Sep 7, 2003 at 7:36 AM I have great difficulty in feeling any amout of credibility and no difficulty in sensing much doubt when a politician speaks on any issue. However, your first paragraph in this article, Mr. Kucinich, may serve to remind the citizenry who truly owns what. Office-holders in every teir of government and corporations, (including utilities), who conspire to empower the takeover of this essential modern human resource, energy, and eventually plunder the people to whom it belongs with impunity, (the same holds true for the communications cartels), are in greater need of waking up. Perhaps it’s time to nationalize these utilities, that is, take them back from the organized corporate criminals and return them to the people. Health insurance, housing, and food availability must also be nationalized. No human being need lack any of these very basic life-or-death commodities. If corporations weren’t inherently incapable of providing these essentials without forcing families to go homeless or be in continual debt to afford them at the inflated, profiteering rates inhumanely demanded, (as they’ve proved historically, without exception to be), then these holdings must be wrested forcibly from them. I would ask those who’ve been scared by those same corporations into believing nationalization to be communistic vis a vis these necessities…why don’t these same ostensibly free enterprise-touting conglomerates fund their own wars-for-profit? Why don’t they, in the spirit of altruistic free enterprise, (a paradox), when their profits begin to peter subsidize one another out instead of begging Uncle Sam for taxpayer bailouts? Why don’t We, the people realize that OUR taxdollars fund prisons, intelligence agencies, law enforcement groups, the war machine, farmer subsidies, and God knows how much more that is hidden that would sicken THE PEOPLE, if they knew the extent to which their tax dollars stuff the wallets of special interests? Why don’t WE construe THAT as socialism or communism? Brainwashing, Propaganda, Public Relations, Lobbyism, The media… that’s why. Wake up, folks…they use our own money to first impoverish us while growing obscenely rich and then again to hypnotize us into fighting among ourselves over the names of economic theories by turning them into bogey men. How do YOU feel about this, Mr. Kucinich?
Posted by Dom Mastroserio on Sep 8, 2003 at 2:03 AM Dennis-
Please please please run! Nader won it for us last round- You’re our new hope if he stays out! Please tell me where to send our checks!-(much more effective than the RNC for sure)
Posted by Ty on Sep 10, 2003 at 3:03 AM Geez, why doesn’t it surprise me that some right-wing nutjob wishes Kucinich would run for president (FYI: he’s been a declared candidate for months now, Ty) only because he knows that his candidate (Monkey Boy) has no hope of victory unless the left splits the vote again.
In case you haven’t been watching the polls lately, an as yet UNNAMED Democrat would beat Bush if the election were held today. I would have thought your Fearless Leader would win 90 percent of the vote because he just won, according to (Fox Nazi News), the greatest military campaign in history (against a nation that chose not to unleash its nonexistent arsenal of WMD against the invaders!)
Americans are beginning to wake up to the lies and bullshit of this illegitimate administration. We need the independent media to keep us informed because the so-called mainstream media are nothing but a cabal of craven, celebrity-obsessed Republican toadies.
Posted by Ken on Sep 15, 2003 at 7:35 AM Darn if I can remember the name of the pundit who commented that Dennis Kucinich “was the worst mayor in America” for promptly putting the city in default.
To quote another “and now you know the rest of the story.” This is typical of all the coverage on Kucinich’s campaign. He is either not mentioned, called “not a viable candidate”, or out right dismissed.
What the heck happend as to our right as American citizens to make that dertemination ourselves
Posted by Larry J. Swiech on Sep 19, 2003 at 11:22 AM Dennis J. Kucinich is the single presidential candidate who can bring about the changes we need in this country. For once, let us wake up and elect a person of real integrity and begin to take back the government from the corporate interests which are rapidly turning the U.S. into a fascist state and make ours once again “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Posted by Charles M. Ashley on Sep 23, 2003 at 3:35 AM After reading the other comments above, I am so encouraged that I am going to post Dennis’s official webiste here:
Please volunteer and donate at this site! Help us wrest back our nation from the real axis of evil—the Bush Junta. Unfortunately it is not easy or cheap to win against these plutocrats. It will take sacrifices—real sacrifices!—of time and money to buy back our government from these pigs. Power to the People!
Posted by Charles M. Ashley on Sep 23, 2003 at 3:44 AM Dennis was right then and he’s right now. Thank you, Dennis for running for President. You not only shed light on a deregulation process that has abandoned the public interest but on every other issue and the interconnectedness of all. Thank you for lightening up my enthusiasm and my vision for what our country can be—the light to the rest of the world! Now IS the Moment. Each one of us is making a difference.
Posted by Kenneth I. Walke on Sep 23, 2003 at 6:06 AM It is stories like these that make me believe that it is the corporations that we need to curb. They have a networking system into banks, utilities, energy, education and all. They are a conglomerate focused on money for the few no matter the product. We the people are focused on one issue. or two issues which are complex. We dont ahve the scope nor education to see the total pciture. We need a man who knows how corporations have control of our government. We need someone who can give government back to the people. We need to be careful who we vote for in this next election. It must be someone who is not supported by corporations. As I see it, corporations are supporting a candidate in each party. That candidate will continue to business as usual when the elections are over. If we want a change, we need to support the candidate who is not accepting money from key corporate persons. Strategy is quite refined today and very clever.
Posted by Lydia Flores on Sep 23, 2003 at 6:36 AM Obviously, Dennis Kucinich is a politician of conviction, a politician who decides an issue based on whatis right,not on which way the wind is blowing. I can’t think of anyone else in that class since Jimmy Carter. We need him.
Posted by Bill Simon on Sep 25, 2003 at 12:28 AM Hi Bill Simon,
perhaps the people of Indonesia or Haiti could tell you exactly how much you need Jimmy Carter.
Posted by Owen on Sep 28, 2003 at 5:52 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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